The Wesnoth.org forum board was created for the purpose of improving and developing Wesnoth based on users’ feedback, problem reports, contributions, and user-made content development. By posting in the forum you agree to make it a worthwhile experience for you, and the other members of the community.

To make sure that chaos and noise don’t hinder the main purposes of the board, the Posting Guidelines were created: a set of simple general guidelines, and some more specific rules in regards to signatures, content uploads and others that we expect you to follow in principle from now on. Individual forums may have their own set of rules to follow. For instance, Technical Support requires assistance requests to be made according to the requirements outlined in How to report a bug properly, and Art forums have guidelines for content critique which you must read before posting in there.

Write clearly (#)No L33t-sp33k or Txtspk. No SHOUTING in threads — it’s rude and won’t get you anywhere. If English isn’t your first language, just do your best, and try to include a version of your post in your native language to allow other forum users to help you in your language.

Be polite (#)Or at least civil. Remember that tone is hard to judge on the Internet — if you are not sure whether your post might be considered offensive by other people or not, err on the side of caution. Trolling or inciting flame wars may result in deleted or locked posts and topics, or bans. No profanity, obscenities, derogatory slurs, or hate speech in general — the forums are intended to be a welcoming environment for all ages and groups of people.

Thread titles (#)When making a thread, make sure that the title accurately conveys what the thread is about. Vague titles serve little purpose in attracting attention if you need help, have a question, or want an opinion on your work. Thread titles in IN ALL CAPS (shouting!) are annoying, rude and highly frowned upon.

Smilies and post formatting in general (#)If you must use smilies, use them sparingly — excessive smilies will get deleted or your whole post deleted, and posts that contain nothing but smilies are generally frowned upon. Do not use colors or large font sizes in your posts since they are reserved for the forum moderators, unless they may be essential for the purpose of conveying a message to the audience.

No distracting avatars or signatures (#)Just like gratuitous text formatting, animated avatars or graphical/overly decorated signatures are considered distracting and are not allowed in the Wesnoth forums. If you do use these, you’ll be asked to remove them.

Post a single idea/question/comment in only one forum section or topic.

Read the entire topic before replying to it.

Avoid double-posting. In most situations, you should edit your last post instead — especially if nobody has had a chance to read it.

Bumping support requests in support sections (e.g. Technical Support, WML Workshop) is fine, as is posting announcements in your own content development topics.

Avoid reviving inactive topics unless you have something of value to add. Threads over a year old that are revived without adding to or continuing the thread’s topic may be locked, and new posts will either be deleted or split into their own thread.

Nonsense posts may be deleted without warning, especially in a working topic.

No meta-threads (#)If something has been recently discussed or is still being discussed in another thread on this forum, every new thread about the same topic may be locked on sight. Revived locked threads will also be locked.

Let the moderators do their job! (#)We have carefully chosen our moderators from the crowd and we trust them with the task of keeping the forum citizens happy and safe from vandals and troublemakers of any kind. Precisely for this reason, we want you to not try to act like (or even impersonate) a moderator — doing so leads to confusion, conflicts, fights and other things that scare newcomers away.

Ask, don’t demand (#)The Wesnoth community is powered by volunteers from around the world, each one of them with their own interests and occupations. We may choose not to help you if you make the process unpleasant.

Don’t steal art or any other kind of content (#)Even if Wesnoth’s artwork in mainline and the add-ons servers is provided under the terms of a copyleft license, this does not in any way void the author’s copyright on it. Plagiarism is not morally acceptable, and may get you banned.

If you post art… (#)Keep it appropriate. The art directors are entrusted with making judgment calls about what is acceptable for inclusion in the game — however, moderators have the right to raise concerns with them about what deserves to be displayed on the forum. Any art deemed inappropriate may be removed at any time.

Do not abuse forum attachments (#)All files uploaded with the Upload Attachment option are hosted by Wesnoth.org. This functionality is provided as a convenience for our users and contributors, and not with the intent of an imageboard or public file-sharing service; in particular, it is not meant to be used for circumventing our Rules for the official add-ons server, or distributing legally dubious content.

The signature size limit (#) is 4 lines or 300 characters, whichever is greater. Note that lines are counted according to manual line breaks placed by the user, not text wrapping to fit the display area.

Quotes (#) and other content in signatures using the [quote], [code], [spoiler], [section], [center] and [indent]BBCode tags is not allowed since they alter layout, take up extra screen space, and tend to distract readers from the post body contents. If you must have a quote in your signature, please use quotation marks, italics, and other formatting along with the attributed speaker’s name instead.

Fake dividers (#) using underscores or dashes(like _______ or --------) are not wanted, since the forum stylesheets already provide visual cues for distinguishing the signature from the post contents. It also breaks consistency across supported themes (i.e. prosilver vs. subsilver2).

Signatures may contain text no larger than the normal size (#). Smaller text is allowed as long as it doesn’t become unreadable, so keep it above 50%.

Forum moderation (#)If you ever feel the urge to complain to one of our moderators, developers or admins about a moderation action or requirement in the forums, please use the private messaging system and avoid posting in public or in IRC. We are aware that we can make our own mistakes since we are, after all, humans like you but arguing in public attracts unwanted noise which is detrimental for everyone involved, including yourself.This also applies to these Posting Guidelines, and any applicable sectional forum rules. You can provide general feedback by sending a private message to the Forum Moderators group, but this does not guarantee that your concerns will be addressed in the short term. Public discussions of these subjects will be simply locked on sight.

Multiplayer server moderation (#)If you have a complaint or request for a MP moderator or admin, please send a private message to the Multiplayer Moderators user group, or a single member directly. Threads created in the forums for the purpose of voicing your demands will be locked or deleted on sight.

Project administration (#)The forum administration reserves the right to end discussions (through locking or deleting of threads or posts) on matters that have legal implications for the project. Wesnoth is an incorporated organization that encounters issues from time to time, which can have serious consequences for its operation. Given their implications, they cannot be simply left to open discussion without precondition; it’s just an invitation for abuse. While we strive to be as transparent and open as possible, there are limits to what can be discussed.This rule isn’t meant to be a “catch-all” designed to curtail freedom of speech and we’re not against discussions on legal issues. We simply don’t believe that the forums are the appropriate place for them. If you are an author or participant of a thread that we feel to be inappropriate, you will likely receive a PM or reply post from a developer, moderator or administrator informing you so. If you have a legitimate concern over some aspect of the project’s legal system, then you’re welcome to message a senior developer about it.

You have all seen it, or are about to see it, floating around at the corners of your posts, a temptation to push, but hesitating because you are not sure of the amount of retribution that will come down on your heads for summoning the attention of the powers that be.

Fact of the matter is, spammers are getting a bit smarter, and learning tricks that allow their posts to more readily assume the appearance of an innocent post (as if there is any such thing). It would be greatly appreciated if any member who catches such spam on their own to not hesitate to use the Report Post button in order to draw attention to it. If more eyes are looking, the spam will be caught much sooner.

You are also able to report PM abuse, as the same icons are available when reading your private messages. After submitting your report, the offending message will be made available for all forum moderators and admins to see its complete contents.

Note that although these features are primarily intended for reporting spam, you can also use them to report other kinds of violations of the Posting Guidelines.

For more general issues for which there is no report button (e.g. signatures, avatars) or specific posts that can be reported, you should send a private message directed at the Forum Moderators group instead, manually providing any information you feel to be relevant for your report.

Don’t comment in the public forums in reply to spam or violations of these Posting Guidelines. It only obstructs the work of moderators and administrators trying to remove offending posts since they might need to delete or edit other people's posts in addition to the actual violations. This leaves inconsistent threads behind. We prefer if you just report the violations and spam (with the report post button), and then move on.

Changelog:

2010-10-16 — complete revision; some items added or clarified.2011-04-04 — added more quote-like BBCodes to point 3b.2012-05-16 — added point 2c, addressing forum attachments use/misuse2013-01-15 — reworded point 1f, clarifying the double-posting issue; added feedback directions to point 4a; added directions to point 5 for elements missing a report function2013-07-02 — clarified some language in point 4c2015-05-06 — clarified some language in point 1b2017-06-06 — added more layout BBCodes to point 3b2017-08-16 — Reformatted 1f and added point 1f-v